Chief minister Akhilesh Yadav is back with a bang on the social media.
And guess what prompted this comeback: Sarcastic and critical comments made by Narendra Modi, prime ministerial nominee of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
While he first responded on facebook to Modi’s
Bahraich comment, he later also took to twitter to express his views on Delhi government’s decision to ask DMRC to “withdraw support” to the Lucknow metro rail project.

Akhilesh’s love for social media is not newfound.

He was all there before he became the chief minister.

Armed with a Blackberry in both hands, he was deft in tweeting simultaneously.

However, soon after he became the CM, he virtually vanished from the social media.

While he totally stopped tweeting, his facebook posts mainly had pictures of laptop distributions or rallies.

Not anymore. When early this month Modi in Bahraich took a dig at Akhilesh by saying:

“The chief ministers in UP were self centered. They were busy serving their own interests. Last chief minister loved elephants; this chief minister loves Lions (reference was Lion safari in Etawah for which UP government sought pairs of Gir Lions from Gujarat). The chief ministers don’t think about development. It would have been better if instead of Lions he had asked know-how for how to increase power production in Uttar Pradesh or Gir cows (that are famous for good and high milk productivity) or Amul technology. But look what he asked for? Lions”.

Akhilesh took to facebook to respond. Without making any reference to Modi, he wrote on November 11: “UP has given swamp deer 02 female, hog deer pair, macaw pair, golden pheasants two pairs, ring necked pheasants two pair in exchange for two pairs of Gujarat lions (sic)”.

A lot of people responded to Akhilesh’s comment.

One facebook friend of his wrote: “Akhilesh bhaiya, forgive him (Modi), why take offence to phenku’s (Modi’s) comment”.

Another wrote: “Shobhan Sarkaar’s dreams (the ascetic who saw in dreams a hidden treasure in the Dhaundiaya Khera village in Unnao); Mungeri Lal’s dreams (wishful thinker) and Modi’s dreams are similar.”

Yet another wrote: “Plan everything in a manner that he (Modi) should regret his whole life that who he incited.”

A party leader said: “If you observe both the comments of Akhileshji, then you would notice that in none of the two comments he made any snide or disrespectful or irresponsible remarks. He is not like other politicians, he maintains dignity in spoken or written words.”

So without being critical on DMRC or Delhi government Akhilesh tweeted on November 15: “Even though The Delhi Metro Rail Corporation has refused to support us, I will still make sure that the Lucknow Metro is on track soon.”

While with the election heat rising, facebook bandwagon and the twitterati was expecting more of wisdom from the young chief minister, Akhilesh’s latest post had much to do with his love for sports: “Bharat Ratna for Sachin is a well deserved honor for the son of India,” he wrote.